Scarica ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE - David Crystal (riassunto completo) e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity!
CHAPTER 1 – Why a global language? The statement “English is the global language” might sound ridiculous, obvious and foregone. Thanks to newspaper from all over the world this statement and the concept of the English language that turned to be global seem to have been completely simplified and taken for granted. But this statement is not telling us the obvious, the language continues to make news daily in many countries. So, what does it mean to say that s language is a global language? If is there one predictable consequence of a language becoming a global language is that nobody owns it anymore, or rather, everyone who has learned it now owns it. This topic is very controversial, there are those who appreciate the fact that their mother tongue has become an integral part of the culture and habits of others, while others despise the use that others make of this language. There are very mixed feelings involved. But how does a language come to achieve global status?
- What is a global language? A language becomes global when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. A role like this will be most evident in countries where many people speak the language as a mother tongue (es. English: USA, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Britan…). However, mother tongue use by itself cannot give a language a global status: to achieve this status the language must be used by other countries. There are 2 ways in which this can be done:
- The language is made the official language of that country, and is used for laws, media, and in the education system. Such language is often described as a second language because it is seen as a complement to a person’s mother tongue (es. English has a special status in counties such as Ghana, Nigeria, India, Singapore…).
- the language becomes a priority in a country’s foreign-language system. Basically, is the language which children are most likely to be taught in school (es. English is now the language that’s most widely taught as a foreign country, it is taught in over 100 countries). It is also important to note that there are many ways in which a language can achieve the status of ‘official’: it might be the sole official language of a country, or it might share this status with other languages. Similarly, there are several reasons for choosing a foreign language as a preferred language, this includes political, cultural, commercial reasons and many others. Even the very presence of the language can change from country to country, it can be used a lot or not very used. The government itself can be the cause of this, it can help and invest in the development and the spread of the language or not. Distinction between ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘foreign’ language status are useful, but we must be careful to not give them simplistic interpretation. All these points make us understand the complexity of the situation in which the English language is today. English has already reached the stage of global language: it is used by a large amount of people; it has also surpassed Chinese in the number of speakers of the language (1.5 billion of English speakers vs. 1.1 billion of Chinese speakers).
- What makes a global language? Why a language achieves the status of “global language” does not have to deal with the number of people that speak that language, it has to deal more with the power of its users. Without a strong power-base no language can make progress as an international medium of communication. When the speakers/users succeed on the international stage, the language succeed as well, if they fail the language fails as well. It is common to hear people convinced that the global diffusion of a language
derives from its aesthetic qualities, its structure, its literary history or its religious standings, but such arguments are misconceived. A language does not become a global language because of its structural properties, the size of its vocabulary, its literature or its culture or religion. These can be factors that can motivate people to start learning a certain language, but they cannot ensure a language’s world spread. A language becomes an international language for one main reason: the power of its speaker (es. we have many languages that throughout history have established themselves as international languages thanks to the power of those who speak them: Latin, Spanish, Arabic, Greek, Portuguese, French, Greek…). But international success and dominance is not always provided by military power: it might take a militarily powerful nation to establish a language, but it takes an economically powerful one to maintain and expand it. In the 19th^ century things start changing, economic developments begin to operate on a global scale supported by new technologies and new communication methods (telegraph, radio, telephone). The advent of the mass media, the development of this new international market and the introduction of new technologies have helped the development and global diffusion of the English language.
- Why do we need a global language? Translation has played a central role in human interaction for thousands of years. The more a community is linguistically mixed, the less it can rely on individuals to ensure communication between different groups. The problem has traditionally been solved by finding a language to act as a lingua franca. Sometimes, when communities start to trade with each other, they adopt a simplified language called ‘pidgin’ which combines elements from their different languages (many pidgins still exist nowadays, generally in territories that were colonized by European nations). Sometimes an indigenous language becomes a lingua franca, the other groups then learn this language by varying success and thus become to some degree bilingual. Geographically speaking, a lingua franca extends over territories that tend to be small. However, in modern times we have seen how many languages have begun to be considered as lingua franca in many territories of the world. Starting from the first half of the 1900s, the idea and the need to use a single lingua franca for the whole world began to arise, especially with the birth of international organizations such as the UN, UNESCO, UNICEF and many others. As these examples suggest, the growth in international contacts has been largely the result of two separate developments: the first one is the development of technologies in the communication field, the second one is the development of technologies in the transportation field. The availability of these two facilities, helped and provided the circumstances needed for a global language to grow. People, in short, become more mobile, both physically and electronically. Everything is much more connected today than yesterday, both locally and globally, advanced technologies make communication simpler and more effective and that is why people now usually talk about the ‘global village’. Under these circumstances, a global language is needed now more than ever.
- What are the dangers of a global language? There are many benefits regarding the use and diffusion of a global language, but we must also consider the presence of some dangers or possible risks. Perhaps the use of a global language can lead to the development of an elite monolingual linguistic class, or the ones that use this language might be manipulative and use their own advantage to submit the ones that do not own the language, or the presence of a global language might transform people into becoming lazy about
who we really are, a language is part of our history and our culture. on the other hand, however, we see how mutual intelligibility is increasingly necessary and this leads us to encourage the growth and development of a global language. Someone may think that the need for identity and the need for mutual intelligibility are two opposite tendencies, in reality they respond to two different kind of needs. The arrival of a global language and its development can surely lead to the transformation of other languages: for example, we can talk about the introduction of new words within the various languages involved, someone might accept the transformation of the language and some other might be opposed (in recent years there has been a tendency to go against the introduction of English words into the lexicon of other languages). This debate concerning the alleged relationship between the introduction of a global language and the death of linguistic minorities was born in the nineties. But, as we have already said, there is no strong correlation between the two phenomena (es. It has been seen that, during the course of the history, minority language deaths have been reported in areas of the world where English has not had much of an impact, like Latin America, Russia and China).
- Could anything stop a global language? Could anything stop a language one it achieves a global status? The short answers might be yes. Even in literature, especially in speculative fiction, one can see apocalyptic or cataclysmic scenarios or descriptions of dystopian futures where the language used universally is Chinese, Arabic or even Alien. Smaller-scale revolutions would still not be able to have as much impact as today English is no longer a language that is only owned by one country. A more plausible scenario involves the introduction of automatic translation, which would eliminate the need and the use of a global language, and, today thanks to the internet and advanced technologies, a way to communicate through simultaneous translation already exists, with short and simple sentences, but it is still a possible start. This type of technology is still young, and it will take years for it to be fully effective, and during this time frame all the evidence suggest that the position of English as a global language is going to become stronger, but it will be very interesting to see what happens.
- A critical era It's very hard to think about what will happen in the future regarding languages and the development of English as a global language, we have never seen anything like this before. Within little more than a generation, we have moved from a situation where a world language was a theoretical possibility to one where it is an evident reality. The ones that take decisions must bear in mind that we are approaching a critical moment in the history of languages. In some parts of the world English is very well developed, in others it is not so, governments need to consider long-term visions as to whether it concerns investing in the use of a global language or investing in the languages of individual communities.
CHAPTER 2 – Why English? The historical context Why English is the global language and not some other? There are two answers to the question: one is geographical-historical, the other is socio-cultural. The historical account traces the movement of English around the world, beginning with the pioneering voyages to the Americas, Asia and the Antipodes and then, in the nineteenth century with the colonial developments in Africa and the south pacific. English is now represented in every continent so now can then be given the global language label. The socio-cultural explanation looks at the way people all around the world have come to depend on English for political, economic, cultural and commercial reasons. Several domains have come to be totally dependent on it.
- Origins At first the language arrived in England from northern Europe in the 5th^ century and it began to spread around the British Isles (part of Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria and southern Scotland). After the Norman invasion of 1066 some nobles fled further north where they were eventually welcomed, and the language was also welcomed. From the twelfth century, Anglo-Norman knights were sent across the Irish Sea, and Ireland gradually fell under English rule. But these were movements on a very local scale. The first big step as a global language did not take place for another 300 years, towards the end of sixteenth century. At the time the number of mother-tongue English speakers is thought to have been between 5 to 7 million. Between 1603 and 1952 it increased almost fiftyfold to some 250 million (the majority living outside the British Islands). Most of these people were, and still are, Americans, and is in 16th^ century North America that we first find a fresh dimension being added to the history of the language.
- America The first expedition of 1584 to the New World was a failure. The first permanent English settlement dates from 1607 and the colonists called this settlement Jamestown (after James I) and the area Virginia (after the ‘Virgin Queen’, Elizabeth). Further, settlements quickly followed along the coasts, and on the nearby islands such as Bermuda. Then, in November 1620, the first group of Puritans, arrived on the Mayflower in the company of 67 other settlers, they landed at Cape Cod Bay, and established a settlement at what now is Plymouth, Massachusetts. What the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ (as they were called later) had in common was their search for a land where they could found a new religious kingdom. This was a successful settlement, and by 1640 about 25’ immigrants had come to the area. The two settlements (the one in the south and the one in the north) had different linguistic backgrounds. The settlers who settled in the southernmost part came from the ‘West Country’ and they also brought with them the characteristics of their English (es. The ‘r’ strongly pronounced after the vowels), the echoes of this accent are still present in the speech of some communities living in some of the isolated valleys. By contrast, many of the Plymouth colonists came from communities in the east of England (Essex, Kent, London and others), these accents were different (notably, lacking the ‘r’ after vowels) and they proved to be dominant in this area. Subsequently the populations began to grow and migrate bringing dialectal distinctions with them: the New England people moved west into the region of the Grate Lakes; the southerners moved along the Gulf Coast and into Texas; and the Midlanders spread throughout the whole of the vast, mid-west area, across the Mississippi and into California. At the time there were many different dialects and even today you can perceive some differences in the speech between the three main
The policy of the slave traders was to bring people of different language backgrounds together in the ships, to make it difficult for groups to plot rebellion. The result was the growth of several pidgin forms of communication, especially between slaves and sailors, many whom spoke English. Once arrived in the Caribbean, this pidgin English continued growing and was used as a means of communication between the black population and the new landowners and among blacks themselves. Then this pidgin gradually began to be used as a mother tongue, producing the first black creole speech in the region. Creole forms of French, Spanish and Portuguese were also developing in and around the Caribbean.
- Australia and New Zealand By the eighteenth century, English also arrived in the southern hemisphere, here the numbers of speakers have never been large, but the varieties of English which have emerged are just as distinctive. Australia was first visited in the year 1770 and within twenty years Britain had established its first penal colony at Sidney. About 130’000 prisoners were transported during the fifty years after the arrival in 1788. They did not achieve substantial numbers until the mid-century: in 1850 the population was about 400’000 and by 1900 nearly 4 million, in 2002 it was nearly 19 million. The prisoners who arrived on the coasts of Australia came mainly from England and Ireland, for this reason still today in Australian speech you can hear some elements of the speech of these areas. On the other hand, the variety contains many expressions which have originated in Australia. In New Zealand the story of English started later and moved slowly. The Europeans started settling there in 1790s and the Christian missionary work began among the Māori from about 1840. There was then a rapid increase in European immigration (from around 2000 in 1840 to 25000 by1850, and then three-quarters of a million in 1900). Also, the total population in 2002 was over 3. million. We have 3 main factors why NZ social history has impacted the language: a strong sense of the historical relationship with Britain (people speak with an accent that displays clear British influence); a growing sense of national identity; a fresh concern to take account the rights and the needs of the Māori people (this increased the use of Māori words in NZ English).
- South Africa British involvement initially arrives in 1795 and British control officially arrives in 1820 through colonialist practices. English becomes the official language in 1822, it becomes the language used in schools, for writing laws and used in public life. Other colonial interventions arrived between 1840-1850. In the last years of the 19th century many immigrants arrived from the English areas and for this reason there was initially a certain amount of regional dialect variation, but later on a more homogeneous accent emerged (an accent that shares many similarities with the accents of Australia). But at the same time, English was being used as a second language by the Afrikaans speakers, in addition English came to be used, along with Afrikaans and often other languages, by those whith an ethnically mixed background. English was and still is used by a minority of the South African population, Afrikaans was the first language of most whites and blacks. English was used by the remaining whites (of British backgrounds) and by the increasing number of the black population. However, due to apartheid the Afrikaans language started to be interpreted as the language of persecution and exploitation and English started to be used as a language of protest. The current linguistic situation in this region is very complex, English remains important in international communication and more and more parts of Afrikaans are becoming bilingual. result of this is the great variety of accents. Today there are
eleven official languages in south Africa, including English and Afrikaans, but it is likely that English will continue to be an important lingua franca in the future. Also, an enthusiasm for the language continues to grow among the black population.
- South Asia In terms of numbers of English speakers, the Indian subcontinent has a very special position. The traditional view is that between 3 and 5 percent of the local population speak English, which translates to approximately 30 to 50 million people when India has surpassed the one billion. More recent studies have estimated that one third of the population is now capable of having a conversation in English. We must also not forget that even in neighboring regions, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other regions, there is a large number of English speakers, so now there are several varieties of the language that have emerged throughout the subcontinent. The origins of these varieties of English lie in Great Britain. The first contact with these countries took place in 1600 with the creation of the East India Company which established its first trading station at Surat in 1612. The power of the East India Company grew so much that it ruled the country between 1765 and 1947 (the year in which independence was sought), here English became the medium of administration and education throughout the subcontinent. In 1835 was proposed the introduction of English into the Indian educational system and when the universities of Bombay Calcutta and Madras were established in 1857 English became the primary medium of instruction and that’s why it grew so much. It now has the status of an ‘associate’ official language, with Hindi the official language and it is recognized as the official language of four states and eight Union territories.
- Former colonial Africa Despite centuries of European trade with African territory, only the Dutch had established permanent settlements in these areas. Despite this, these areas were divided into colonial territories belonging to Britain, Portugal, Germany, Italy and Belgium after 1914. After decolonization, however, it was decided to maintain existing boundaries. English in the West Africa began to be heard sporadically from the end of the 15th century, it was known to be used as a lingua franca in some of these territories and since the 19th century English had officially arrived in these areas, a result of this arrival has been the birth of various English-based pidgins and creoles, used alongside with other standard varieties (used by officials, missionaries, soldiers and traders). A real interest in the part of East Africa begins to be felt starting from 1850 thanks to the expeditions of some English explorers within the territory. The Imperial British East Africa was founded in 1888 and also in this case, there was a colonial type of domination. In these territories the English language has always had a dominant role and has played a fundamental role in the development of some states (it was the language used in schools, media, courts and other public domains). But the kinds of English which developed in East Africa were very different from those found in West Africa, there’s a range of mother-tongue English varieties which have more in common with what is heard in South Africa or Australia than in Nigeria or Ghana.
- South-east Asia and the South Pacific The territories in and to the west of the South Pacific display an interesting mixture of American and British English. The main American presence emerged after the Spanish-American War of 1898, from which the USA received the island of Guam and sovereignty over the Philippines (the
*Here subsequently the author introduces a table containing an alphabetical list of 75 countries (included in the inner circle and in the outer circle) where English, and its varieties (pidgins, creoles or standard), is learned and used as a first or second language and has a relevant administrative importance. * In the table, the data described take into consideration countries that speak a language as a first or second language, but these data must be interpreted with caution. The total number of people who speak English as a first language, according to the data shown in the table, amounts to 329 million worldwide, but the main variable concerns whether pidgins or creoles should be included in the total. If this were the case, we would have to add at least another 80 million more speakers to the total and thus the total would amount to about 400 million. As regards the total of those who speak it as a second language, it amounts to 430 globally, but even in this case, however, we are not provided with a complete picture because the data of many countries is unknown. Lastly, this table does not take into consideration the number of those who speak or learn it as a foreign language (the expanding circle), also in this case the estimates can vary enormously because it all depends on how the government of a given country invests in the language. However, it is estimated that globally the number of speakers of English as a foreign language amounts to one billion (from beginners to advanced learners are taken into consideration). Two comments must be immediately made: 1) if one quarter of the world’s population speaks English, then three quarters do not. 2) there is evidently a major shift taking place in the centre of gravity of the language. No other language has spread around the globe so extensively, but what is impressive is not so much the grand total but the speed with which expansion has taken place since 1950s. CHAPTER 3 – Why English? The cultural foundation Over the course of time there have been many thinkers and theorists who have supported and speculated about the growth and spread of the English language globally. John Wallis in 1775 already saw potential in the language and even two centuries earlier another thinker, Richard Mulcaster, was one of the strongest supporters of the English language feeling that he had to defend it against those who believed that English should not usurp the long-established place of Latin. But he could still see that there was a problem: English couldn’t compete with Latin on an international level (English was widespread only in the islands), but within two years the first expedition to America had set sail, and the situation was about to change brutally. David Hume, in 1767, saw in America the key to the future success of English and other thinkers’ speculations such as Jhon Adams’ (in 1780) and Jakob Grimm’s (in 1851) became true (Grimm's ideas especially were listened to and were very successful, so much so that they grew together with British imperialist ideas). And indeed, by the end of the century, English had become ‘the language on which the sun never sets’. Then, as today, some enthusiasts were moved to speculate about the world’s linguistic future in ways which can be best described as fantasy: the nineteenth-century writers were making assumptions which were soon to prove false (predicting the linguistic future is always a dangerous activity). But the general thrust of their arguments was certainly borne out, in many of their writings it was stated that English would have become the language of the future.
All these observations reinforce the historical account given in the CHAPTER 2 , illustrating the short period of time it took for English to travel around the world. But they do not give us the whole story. After all, when a new language arrives in a country it has to prove its value and worth. So, what was the worth of the English language, as it grew in global stature during the 19th^ century? In which ways did people value it? The answer to these questions will gave us a sense of the language’s social usefulness. Now a socio-historical account is needed to help us explain it and only a cultural account can give us a sense of what is likely to happen in the future. In relation to so many of the major socio-cultural developments of the past 200 years, it can be proved that English what repeatedly found itself in the right place at the right time.
- Political developments Many theorists who lived before the twentieth century would have easily answered the question "why a global English" by referring to the power and expansion of the British empire and English for this reason was regarded as a vital means of continued territorial conquest by the English. Furthermore, the language has always played a fundamental role, the role of guarantor and the role of the symbol of political unity. Many states, especially the newly independent ones in Africa, have continued to use English as a tool to communicate with each other at the national level.
- Access to knowledge From the beginning of the 19th century, Britain became a huge industrial power, its population from 1700 to 1800 doubled. The linguistic consequences of this achievement were extraordinary: a large number of terms from the industrial field were added to the English vocabulary, but more important the fact that these innovations were pouring out of an English-speaking country meant that those from abroad that wanted to learn about them would need to learn English. Initially Britain, and then America which the end of the century became an economic world power, became magnets that attracted inventors, scientists and theorists who became specialists in their fields. When the American research is added to British, it is possible to suggest that about half of the influential scientific and technological output in the period between 1750 and 1900 would have been written in English. Moreover, thanks to the invention of printing, people of all classes had access to information of all kinds. Access to knowledge was also helped by the introduction of new transportation systems (steamships, railways…) and new communication systems (telegraph, radio, telephone…). In this way more and more people and nations had the possibility to communicate with each other. In particular, the distribution of daily newspapers on a large scale would not have been possible without a railway system and, later, a road network. In this period the banking system, the manufacturing system, and the finance system also grew significantly. The resulting ‘economic imperialism’, as it was later called, brought a fresh dimension to the balance of linguistic power.
- Taken for granted. The history of English in this period is the history of a booming language and it is difficult to define its causes and effects in detail: many historical events that have followed have led to the 'assuming' that the language to be used would have been English. There was a sort of unspoken rule which provided for the use of the English language (for example when the radio was invented, there was no doubt: English would have been the most obvious option). There was nothing novel about taking English for granted in this way: there was no competition from other languages, no crisis of
- The media As we have already mentioned, the development and diffusion of the English language in more recent times is due to the development of the means of communication itself, the media over the course of time has had a fundamental impact. The press : The English language has been an important medium of the press for nearly 400 years. Already from the 17th century some European states published rudimentary newspapers, but censorship, taxation and other factors prevented a great growth. Progress was much better in Britain, that saw the rise of some newspapers that were providing general news as well as information about shipping. The British press and the American press from the beginning of the 18th century saw the birth of important newspapers, but the greatest progress came in the 19th century thanks to the introduction of new printing technology and new methods of mass production and transportation. Massive circulations were achieved by such American papers as the New York Herald (1833) and New York Tribune (1841). Britain saw the birth of The Times as early as 1788 and it continued to grow over the years, and thanks to the birth of The Daily Mail in 1896 the British press reached the same figures as the American one. Also, thanks to the invention of the telegraph and the large numbers obtained from the press, the broadcast of information was mostly guaranteed in English globally. And nowadays, according to some estimates, in 2002 about 57 percent of the world's newspapers were published in English. Obviously, we are not talking only about newspapers, but also about magazines, books, periodicals and other types of publications today are more widely published in English. Advertising : Towards the end of the 19th century new technologies, transport and communication systems began to radically change the world and the number of advertisements began to grow. In the USA, publishers realized that income from advertising would allow them to lower the selling price of their magazines, and thus hugely increase circulation. Before long, publications in which many pages were given to advertising became the norm and now posters, billboards, electric displays, shops signs and other techniques are part of the everyday scene. with the growth of international markets, this new sales methodology also grew, reaching every country in the world and today it is easy to find billboards and advertisements in English. The official language of international advertising bodies is invariably English. Broadcasting : The invention of the telegraph by Guglielmo Marconi took place in 1895 and 25 years after his invention public broadcasting became a reality. The first commercial radio was established in the year 1920 in Pennsylvania, by 1922 in the USA over 500 broadcasting radio where licensed and by 1995 the total was around 5000. The BBC (the British Broadcasting Company) was established in 1922 and the intent was to develop a public-service broadcasting to inform, educate and entertain, needless to say it was hugely successful. In the 1920s many broadcasting agencies began to spring up around the world and the need to create international agreements was inevitable. There was a similar expansion in the introduction of television, in terms of viewers and services no nation has ever surpassed the numbers gained by the United States and Britain. We can only speculate about how these media influenced the growth and expansion of the English language, for example it is known that in 1994 about 45 percent of the world's radio stations were in countries where English had and has a special status, but what such figures say about exposure to English is anyone’s guess. A more specific indication is broadcasting aimed specifically at audiences in other countries. Such programmers were introduced in the 1920s, but Britain did not develop its services until the next decade. The international standing of BBC programmers, especially its news broadcasts, achieved a high point during the Second World War,
when they helped to raise morale in German occupied territories. Although later to develop, the USA rapidly overtook Britain, becoming the leading provider of English language services abroad. The Voice of America, the external broadcasting service of the US Information Agency, was founded only in 1942, but by 1980s it was broadcasting from the USA worldwide in English and 55 other languages. Most other countries showed sharp increases in external broadcasting during the post War years, and several launched English language radio programmers, such as the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Germany and Sweden.
- Cinema Another important means of communication, but above all used for entertainment, which has had enormous importance for the spread of the English language was the motion picture industry. The technology of this industry has many roots in Europe and America during 19th^ century, with Britain and France initially providing an impetus to the artistic commercial development of the cinema from 1895. Subsequently, from 1915 the domain passed to America which saw the emergence of feature film, the star system, the movie mogul, and the grand studio, all based in Hollywood. As a result, during the 1920s, it was the English language which suddenly came to dominate the movie world. Despite the growth of the film industry in other counties in later decades, English-language movies still dominate the medium, it is unusual to find blockbuster movies produced in a language other than English. Even the system that provides recognition and awards is almost entirely oriented towards the English language, just look at the Oscars or the Golden Globes.
- Popular music Another entertainment technology that arose at the end of the 20th^ century was the recording industry. Thomas Edison in 1877 invented the phonograph and the first words recorded were in English and then most of the subsequent technical developments took place in the USA (such as the Gramophone). All the major recording companies in popular music had English language origins. Today it is clear to see how the music scene is entirely dominated by English and many people come in contact with the language thanks to music. The role of British in the genre of polar music starts very early, the British music hall already in the 19th^ century was a great influence of popular trends. By the turn of the century, Tin Pan Alley was a reality, and was soon known worldwide as the chief source of US popular music. A similar trend can be seen in relation to the more ‘upmarket’ genres. During the early twentieth century, European light opera developed an English language dimension. Several major composers were immigrants to the USA, or they were the children of immigrants. The same decade also saw the rapid growth of the musical, a distinctively US product, and the rise to fame of many composers. The broadcasting companies grew and were greedy for new material and the production of gramophones also grew, so the hit songs began to go around the world and to be listened again and again. New musical genres began to emerge such as jazz, blues, country, folk, gospel and then came rock and roll. When modern popular music arrived, it was almost entirely an English scene. America and Britain dominated the charts thanks to musicians and bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and Elvis Presley: no other single source has spread the English language around the youth of the world so rapidly and so pervasively. Now in the 2000s the English language in the pop scene is extraordinary, you can hear it everywhere and all the time. In fact, some commentators underline this pervasive character of the English language in music in a negative way as it leaves little room for the growth of other genres and the diffusion of music in other languages. Others, on the other
- Education When we investigate why so many nations have made English an official language or chosen it as a foreign language in schools, one of the most important reasons is always educational. Some have seen the arrival of English in this form positively and others negatively, but the dominant view is that a person is more likely to be in touch with new currents of thought, with new research and new technologies through English than through other languages. Since 1960s, English has become the normal medium of instruction in higher education for many countries. It has been seen how more and more students encounter English in monographs and periodicals and therefore it has been seen as necessary to strengthen the use of this language within schools and universities through more specific language courses. The ELT (English language teaching) business has become one of the major growth industries around the world in the past half-century. In 1995 global consultation exercise initiated by English 2000, a British Council project, people professionally involved in ELT in some ninety countries were asked to react to a series of statements concerning the role and future of the English language (responses used a 5-point scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’). Many of the suggested statements have seen over 90 percent consensus regarding the importance of teaching and the power of the English language nowadays. Exercises of this kind show us how widely the importance of language globally is now accepted.
- Communications The field of communication is one of the main sectors where an abundant use of the English language can be found, only on the internet, where the information remains for a certain period, is it possible to get an idea of how much everyday communications are in English. There are various calculation methods to verify this, we can go and check the number of calls made or the number of mails sent especially in countries where English has an important status (a widely quoted statistic is that three-quarters of the world’s mails is in English (and most of these come from the USA). Another important statistic concerns the fact that 80 percent of the information stored electronically is in English (information stored privately by individual firms and organizations and informations made available through the internet). English continues to be the chief lingua franca of the Internet, a position which during the 1990s began to be acknowledged in the popular media. Michael Specter in 1996 wrote an article in which the role of English was highlighted: ‘internet and World Wide Web really only work as great unifiers’ and ‘if you want to take full advantage of the internet there is only one way to do it: learn English’. On the other hand, however, he underlines the risks that can be reached: the problem is the possible birth of two social classes of citizens, the literate one (who knows English and therefore has access to online resources) and the non-literate one (those who do not know English and as a result do not have access to knowledge of online resources), but this is thought to be just a temporary problem. But the problem has to do more with the economic resources of the country or of the person and whether one actually wants to invest in education. Another important factor concerns the annual growth of those who use the internet worldwide, the number of users is growing rapidly. From a million users in 1990, estimates by the internet society suggested there were 20 million users in 1993, and over 40 million by the end of 1995. The 2002
NUA survey estimates 544 million users distributed across 201 territories. With the abundance of people who use the internet on a daily basis, the use of English has gradually changed: initially, as we have seen, the available resources were mostly in this language, now we see that linguistic minorities also make room and become protagonists as the Net gives them a louder and a cheaper voice (chatrooms and chatgroup are very common in all areas of the world). In this scenario, English does not appear like a threat anymore but as an alternative.
- The right place at the right time We can state that the growth of English as a global language or a lingua franca has to do with the fact that it was a language that constantly found itself at the right place at the right time. During 16 th and 17th^ centuries it was the language of the leading colonial nation – Britain. During the 18th^ and 19 th^ century it was the language of the leader of the industrial revolution – also Britain. In the late 19 th^ century and the early 20th^ it was the language of the leading economic power – USA. As we have seen, English influenced the media, broadcasting, pop music, cinema and many other industries. Moreover, thanks to the birth of new international alliances, the use of a lingua franca has been deemed necessary. Two events made it possible to achieve this status: giving English a special role within some countries and the electronic revolution and the introduction of the internet in the 70s (as we have seen initially the information and data made available on the internet were almost entirely in English). It is difficult to predict the future, with something so dynamic like the internet, but we know that for example the arrival of high-quality immediate translation facilities will have a major impact on the use of English. CHAPTER 5 – The future of global English The scenario developed up to now seems to leave us no choice for the future: English will consolidate more and more as a global language given its current power and dominance. But linguistic history shows us repeatedly that is wise to be cautious, when making predictions about the future of a language. In speculating about the future of English as a world language we need to pay attention to indications which seem to go against the general trend. We should ask ourselves ‘what kinds of development could impede the future growth of English?’. A change in power, be it political, economic, cultural or technological can influence the position of a given language and make it attractive and gradually get to the position in which English is today and replace it. This chapter looks at the possible future of English.
- The rejection of English It is possible that people living in a given country refuse to use English and refuse to give it a special role or a special status. Many authors, writers, thinkers from various countries have argued against the use of English seeing it once again as a colonizing tool. These arguments are all to do with identity, and with a language as the most immediate and universal symbol of that identity, seeing one's language replaced by English is a sore point for many as they wish to see their mother- tongue grow and expand. English in this case has an unhappy colonial resonance in the minds of many, but we can also see ambivalent cases: many writers write in English so their work will have the chance to reach a worldwide audience; but to write in English may mean sacrificing their cultural identity.
or very well, there is no need to make the language official. Even if English were made official, the use of a common language does not guarantee ethnic harmony. A community can be torn apart on racial, religious, political, or other grounds, even when both sides are united by a single language. The socio-economic argument: for Pro-official supporters maintain than, at a time when there is considerable competition for limited found, an expensive multilingual support policy is undesirable. It is not as if there is just a single alternative language which is in need of protection: there are well over 300 to take into consideration. They point out that no country could afford a language policy which tried to give official protection to so many languages. It is also argued that the provision of alternative language services is highly wasteful of resources, because they are so little used. A better return for money would come from spending it elsewhere: in improving the English-language abilities of immigrants in the USA. Official status would help to safeguard English as the language of opportunity. The socio-economic argument: against Anti-official supporters doubt whether government time and money would really be saved, given the cost and complexity of introducing the new law. They question whether the legislation could possibly be enforced and point to the difficulties of giving a precise definition to the notion of ‘official’, in relation to language, and of making a clear and consistent distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ discourse. The new law would prove inadequate to cope with the realities of a highly complex and dynamic social situation. It would cause more complications than that it would solve and would probably be more expensive to implement and maintain. The ‘all or nothing’ view of language support is also hotly contested, using the following line of reasoning. There may indeed be no principled way of drawing a line between one group of languages and another, but it does not follow from this that nothing should be done to help those who speak the more widely used languages. The fields of health and safety, provide a good example of areas where much more could be done than is available at present. In Germany, for example, pharmaceutical companies have to provide instruction labels in five languages. It is not feasible to help everyone who has difficulty with English, but it is not acceptable to conclude from this that the government should therefore help none of them. It is also thought likely that interest in foreign language learning will further diminish, and this is felt to be an unfortunate development at a time when the climate in international business competitiveness and political diplomacy is one where foreign language ability is increasingly seen as advantageous. Educational issues Other arguments used by both sides refer, for example, to the education system. Pro-official supporters are especially concerned about the bilingual education system where often teachers have a low level of poor-quality English and thus teach students poor quality English as a result. Anti-official supporters underline the importance of a bilingual education, they also underline that immigrant students are more likely to study a second language if their own is well valued. They also suggest that if there are indeed shortcomings in the school system, it is due to the lack of resources given by the government and few services that can help people. It is however very complex to make an abstract of the valid arguments put forward in favor of one and the other perspective. Those who support pro-official position believe that the situation has gotten out of hand and that too much credit is being given to the multicultural realities of the country thus discrediting the English language, on the other hand, those who are not in favor of making English official see its officialization as a way to suppress cultural realities and discriminate against them. By the end of 1996, the future direction of the ‘official English’ debate was still unsettled. The language arguments have become increasingly polarized. There seem to be something about the intimate relationship between language, thought, individuality, and social identity which generates
strong emotions. And in a climate where supporters of official English came to be routinely labelled ‘racists’, and immigrants wishing to use their own language were castigated by such names as ‘welfare dogs’, it was difficult to see the ground for compromise.
- New Englishes The best way of defining a genuinely global language is that its usage is not restricted by countries or by governing bodies. The loss of ownership is of course uncomfortable to those, who feel that the language is theirs by historical right; but they have no alternative. No social movement can influence the global outcome, in the end it comes down to population growth. In India now, for example, there are almost as many speakers of English as there are in England. If current English- language learning trends continue, this differential will continue to widen. One consequence is certainly linguistic change, English becoming a global language is now open to change in unpredictable ways bringing out new varieties of English (often known as ‘new Englishes’). The most familiar example takes into considerations the differences between American English and British English, today we can count thousands of differences between the two varieties. The forces that shaped the developments of American English are many and various and they have been well summarized by US dialectologist Frederic G. Cassidy (Cassidy tells us that the revolution, the national independence, literature, democracy, popular forces, the freedom to experiment with language are elements that have contributed fundamentally to create this variety of English). As already mentioned, there are many varieties of English in today's world, the best known and spoken ones are: Australian English, NZ English, Canadian English, South African English, Caribbean English, and, within Britain, Irish, Scots, and Welsh English; but there are many other varieties that are currently emerging within the other countries. We could consider these varieties as regional dialects, only instead of at the local level they develop over a much larger territory and involve millions of people. And just like dialects, these new varieties arise because importance is given to the identity of the groups to which they belong. International varieties thus express national identities and are a way of reducing the conflict between intelligibility and identity: because a speaker from a country A is using English, there is an intelligibility bond with an English speaker of country B – and this is reinforced by the existence of a common written language. The growth of these new varieties is due to the number of nations that declared themselves independent since the 1990s. Most adaptation in a New English relates to vocabulary, in the form of new words, words- formations, word-meanings, collocations and idiomatic phrases. Speakers find themselves adapting the language to meet fresh communicative needs. The biogeographical uniqueness of a country will generate a potential number of words of all kinds, there will be new words relating to food, medicine, animals, family, work, society and many more. Literature, commerce, politics, laws will also be distinctive of that country. So, when a community adopts a new language, and starts to use it in relation to all areas of life, there is inevitably going to be a great deal of lexical creation.
- The linguistic character of new Englishes The way the language has evolved in setting where most people are native speakers is likely to be very different from the way it will evolve in settings where most are non-native speakers. It is possible to identify several types of change which are taking place, and to gain a sense of their
